Pay attention, ears
open. Because this could be the hidden masterpiece by the Stones. A few years
after Between the Buttons and the
first flirt with Dylan, Jagger returns where many (all?) was started: on the Highway
revisited that was a new concept of Author-Rock, as well as crime scene. Compassion and Tradition died. Mick and
Keith come back on this CIS to understand “how do you feel”, really. To see
where came the stone that rolling down towards the bottom. To follow her down, prisoners of a vortex in which diving with a
mocking grin that it was expecting a bullet or an overdodose for a long time. Beware doll, you're bound to fall ... Dylan had understood that to
be a symbol for a marching generation was tiring, stripping. And above all,
that was not true, simply. No symbol, an only, COLOSSAL, error. Believed to be
the Messiah, he was only a common John the Baptist. He solved with a couple of arcane
and symbolist masterpieces and then disappeared for a time that seemed endless.

The Stones rode the
Swinging London, the beat, blues-revival, psychedelia, the street-fighting
protests, and there they fell headlong as the teenager with his first line,
leaving eaten to the bone, enjoying that depravity of which they were the
standard-bearer. If they had gone too, swept by a wave of mysticism in Cote
d'Azur or even in a mass suicide after a beautiful "Grand Bouffe" of
morphine, if they had disappeared after
Exile they would be bigger than Dylan, more than The Beatles. Much bigger
than Jesus, and maybe they are, anyway.

They demonstrated at
least once more the at that time, the from Rock you couldn’t get out alive. No
One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison would say. And if not dead was the
disease, and if not the disease was the drug. And in the end, though physically
intact, were the taste, the sincerity and the measure to emerge martyred by the
metastasis of a life that was a mission. No One Here Gets Out Alive. Once and
for all they reaffirmed that Art and Moral should be avoid one another in the
Real World; Art distorts the Nature and elevates the artist to creative gods:
it’s immoral by definition. It must be.

Now this Torn and
Frayed is a huge terminally country that distorts horribly the folk infatuation
of Buffalo Springfield, burning away both illusions and hopes. The whole gang,
the Glitter Twins, the rest of the band, as well as the Sublime Vagrant Nicky
Hopkins, Perkins’ lascivious slide and black and white pictures by Robert Frank
(the biggest visual apology of Classic Rock), all gasping for breath to keep the
rolling time of those who can’t stand more upright at the end of Summer. Recalling
apparently without rancor, but with ill-concealed nostalgia for better times.
Those who are gone, who are disappeared. Those in which thousands of energy
seemed to conspire to make the Music the Manifesto of the New Aquarian Age.
Then the masks began to fall, earnings grew exponentially, and many were
discovered greedy and mean as never they would think, looking at the adoring
masses at free mega-concerts.

Now is a worn and
shabby coat that drags aimlessly through damp alleys, brothels and pharmacies
looking for payment relief from a life that oppresses non-stop, like a migraine
that continues off the sleep. How does it feel, really, in the shoes of the old
Joe and his guitar playing, still, always forgotten, while all around are too
stoned for listen?

After this song the
whole great self-parody of Glam loses all meaning. Lose sense even the sci-fi
Bowie, the superfine Roxy. And of course loses all sense all that the Stones do
after this song.

What we really need
is already been said. repetition is too much.

The Rolling Stones - Torn and Frayed (Exile on Main St. - 1972)

Hey let him follow you down,

Way underground wind and he's bound.

Bound to follow you down,

Just a dead beat right off the street.

Bound to follow you down.

Well the ballrooms and smelly bordellos

And dressing rooms filled with parasites.

On stage the band has got problems,

They're a bag of nerves on first nights.

He ain't tied down to no home town,

Yeah, and he thought he was wreckless.

You think he's bad, he thinks you're mad,

Yeah, and the guitar player gets restless.

And his coat is torn and frayed,

It's seen much better days.

Just as long as the guitar plays

Let it steal your heart away,

Let it steal your heart away.

Joe's got a cough, sounds kind a rough,

Yeah, and the codeine to fix it.

Doctor prescribes, drug store supplies,

Who's gonna help him to kick it

Well his coat is torn and frayed,

It`s seen much better days.

Just as long as the guitar plays

Let it steal your heart away,

Let it steal your heart away.

Rolling Stones - Torn and Frayed

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?

People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"

You thought they were all kiddin' you

You used to laugh about

Everybody that was hangin' out

Now you don't talk so loud

Now you don't seem so proud

About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone

IMMAGINI

Robert Frank - Fotografie in biano e nero (1971) dal booklet di Exile on Main St.